Researchers surveyed 400 food safety experts to determine what they think about the public's understanding and knowledge of food risk issues, including factors such as what they think contribute to this knowledge as well as the gaps in understanding, and how they feel this could be rectified.
The experts surveyed overwhelmingly believe that the public under-assesses the risk associated with some bacteriological hazards that are prevalent and overestimate the risks posed by hazards with low prevalence such as mad cow disease.
They determined that the level of education and age were important factors in the level of understanding risk issues and messages, but also believe that the media tend to communicate information that is misleading.
Researchers published their findings in the Journal of Food Safety saying, "Public perception of risk is very different from scientists' understanding of risk, hence the meaning and response to 'risk' differs between the public and scientists."
The experts surveyed suggest that early intervention via school lessons is the best method to improve understanding of food risk messages in the long term.
